


Trust Me

by StarsAreMassive



Series: Sworn Sisters [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angry!Arya, Canon Universe, F/M, Family, Gen, Gendry is an idiot, Gendrya - Freeform, Idiots in Love, Pre-War for the Dawn, Starks in Winterfell, Sullen!Gendry, protective!Sansa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 12:28:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18620644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsAreMassive/pseuds/StarsAreMassive
Summary: Arya confronts Sansa, and Sansa tries to make amends.





	Trust Me

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter may not be what some of you are expecting, but I hope you like it all the same.

Sansa had been playing their conversation over and over in her head. For three days she recalled his every expression, every hitch in his breath and nervous tick. Every emotion she could possibly have discerned from him was picked apart and laid before her in her mind's eye, from dawn to dusk.

It had left her cold and uncomfortable.

All she wanted was to protect her family. By all accounts that had reached her ears, Gendry was a good and honest man, if a little grumpy, but she couldn't entrust her sister's safety to the words of others. She had to see it for herself.

And she had. She had seen him sit there, uncomfortable but trying to do his best to please the Lady of the House he had chosen to follow, and more importantly, Arya's sister. She had seen him grow fire in his belly and speak with a passion when he thought she would do anything to make Arya upset. She had watched that fire burn out and the man retreat inside himself, as he put Arya's happiness before his own.

Even if she hadn't, she'd had it laid painfully bare before her that evening as she retired for bed.

* * *

 Arya had been waiting her for her.

One day, Sansa Stark would cease being caught unawares by her sister, but it was not that day, and she hoped the maids wouldn't be too put out finding another scorch mark in the furs on her chamber floors, from a candle dropped in fright.

"Stop doing that," she huffed.

Arya didn't look as pleased to have surprised her as she usually did.

"Do you need something, or are you planning on giving me nightmares standing over me all night?"

Arya ignored her at first. She watched her sister ready herself for bed. When Arya had come back with those calculating eyes and that quietness, it had unnerved Sansa at first. Growing up, her sister was a tempest, wild and always bubbling with a temper underneath her skin. Sansa struggled to associate the sister that stood before her now with stillness and thought. It took a long time until Sansa stopped feeling like she was being picked apart every time Arya looked at her like that. Now, she was proud of how well she could ignore her sister's antics as she slipped on her nightclothes and slipped under heavy linens and furs. As she settled, Arya at last stepped up lightly, next to her head. Sansa's eyes were already closed.

"I know you have no plans to marry me off."

They snapped open.

Sansa had hoped - well, she had damn near prayed - she would have a few days to fix thing with Gendry before word got back to Arya. But the gods had worked against her, and she was stuck in a dimly lit room with an armed sister. "Well, I – yes," Sansa stammered. "We spoke about this. We agreed."

Arya nodded gravely. "Except Gendry seems to be under a different impression entirely. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

A fierce heat blushed over her face and she twisted her fingers in a beautiful sable fur father had given their mother for her nameday on year. Arya noticed right away of course, and she cursed and spat and stomped her feet.

"I knew it – I  _knew_  it! What the hell were you playing at, Sansa?!"

"I just –" she scrambled to sit up. "I just wanted to get to know him."

"Then ask –"

Sometimes, Sansa thought that people forgot she was a wolf, too. She felt her hackles rise at her sister's word. "You wouldn't tell me anything about him! I asked you time and time again. Over and over. How did you meet? How long have you known each other? Tell me about him? And every time,  _every time_ , you refused to answer. You never told me _anything_. What was I supposed to do Arya? Trust a complete stranger with my family –"

"You're supposed to trust  _me_!"

Sansa felt a flush of shame. "I am sorry."

Arya's spine snapped straight and she turned on her heel. Her eyes burned in what little light there was in the room, and Sansa knew it wasn't only anger that made them look so glassy. Marching for the door, Arya bit at her over her shoulder. "Fix this, Sansa. He won't even talk to me so just – _fix it_."

* * *

 So on the third night, after Gendry had somehow managed to weasel his way out of two summons to her council rooms, she found herself stealing over the courtyard well into the night, determined and dainty strides taking her directly to the forge.

The door was slightly ajar, and she could see a gentle glow inside. Sansa took a moment, and a breath, and squared her shoulders as she strode to the door. Her finger tips reach forward to curl around the silken, soft, worn wood and tug it open – until two voices stilled her grasp.

" – 'an't just go breaking in here, Arya." The voice was low and gruff. Gendry.

"My name is Stark isn't it? This  _is_ Winterfell? That means I can do whatever I want." Her sister's voice was cold and angry.

She heard a bitter laugh. "Yeah. Course. Do whatever you want, then,  _Lady Stark._ But I'm going to bed."

There was a scuffle and some huffing, and Sansa heard the fast, thick, thumps of skin hitting skin in a fury –

"You will stay  _here!_ " and Arya's voice wasn't so cold anymore. It was high and cracking. "If I have to command you, you will  _stay!_ "

Silence.

"Three days, Gendry. You've been punishing me for my sister's idiocy for three days."

A soft tap of a foot on the dirt floor. "M'not punishing you for anything."

Arya scoffed. "No? You haven't been locking me out of the forge, or taking on more work than you can handle, all to avoid me? I don't know why you're being so stupid!"

"And I don't know why you're pretending like it can ever be anything different!"

" _Gendry –_ "

He was almost shouting now. "It was going to happen eventually wasn't it? We were kidding ourselves, Arry. Some  _pissing_  highborn lord was going to come along and –"

"And what," Arya growled. "Claim me?"

Gendry didn't bellow back, like Sansa expected. She had to strain to hear him, his voice was so low. It made something twist in her chest. "Take you away from me."

There was more shuffling, and the sounds of small steps and Sansa suspected her sister had stepped up to the Blacksmith's chest.

"I'm not going anywhere you great lumbering idiot." There was more affection in her voice than Sansa had ever heard before. Even with Jon. "Sansa isn't going to marry me off. She was just trying to... Gods I don't even know what she was trying to do. Get to know you, I suppose."

Gendry huffed. "You weren't there. She made herself perfectly clear that you were not for me."

"Good thing she's not the one who gets to decide that, hmm?" Sansa heard grumbling and the soft slip of cloth meeting cloth. "Trust me, Gendry. I know my sister. That wasn't her intent."

"Then what in the seven hells was it?"

"She doesn't know you. She was trying to change that. She can see how important you are to me. She's not completely stupid you know – unlike you. She knows by now you're not going anywhere. I think she just wants to know what we mean to each other."

Gendry huffed. "But you're sisters. Why did she have to come after me? She could have just asked you."

Even Sansa could hear the blush filling the silence.

"Arya, for fuck  _sake_  –"

"Yes, yes – I know! I'm sorry!" and Sansa nearly fell through the door when she heard her sister's muffled voice as if she was trying to speak around cloth, or skin, and the soft sound of a sweet kiss. "I promise I'll talk to her. Soon. And with lots of wine, but soon."

Gendry hummed. "I mean – I can, if you want me to. It's just –"

"No, it's okay," Arya soothed. "But – what?"

Sansa thinks that might have been a laugh. "I have no idea how to... _s_ _ay_  what you mean to me. I'm a blacksmith Arry girl, not a bloody poet. I'm not even Tom O'Sevenstreams."  _There_. That was definitely a chuckle she could hear along with Arya's raspy little laugh.

"Good," another kiss. "I can't bear poets. And Tom's an arse."

"Yeah he is," Gendry said fondly. "But –"

"I know, Gendry. Me too."

Slowly, carefully, Sansa tugged to door ever so slightly ajar, and peeked her eyes around the doorway. She saw her sister, wrapped all up in Gendry and standing on her tiptoes, as he leaned down to peck kisses onto her mouth, along her jaw and in her hair. He clutched her tight to him, as he kissed her forehead and cradled her in his embrace. His eyes were closed where he finally rested his chin atop her crown.

It was time for her to slip away.

As she walked back to her chambers, a soft smile played at her lips. Perhaps, she thought as she finally reached her room, and blew out the candles, she could add one more name to the list of people she could trust. Jon's name had been looking awfully lonely, lately.


End file.
